My journey as I illustrate, write, design and more

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One thing I have heard repeatedly in the book industry is that covers sell. If you don’t have a great cover it’s harder to sell your book no matter how great it is. And I’m a believer. Not that my 1st edition didn’t sell, matter of fact I sold out, but my new cover is bold and immediately lets you know it’s an adventure and that Anyia is about to take you on a journey.

When I designed the cover of the 1st edition of Anyia, Dream of a Warrior I really didn’t in an action pose. I don’t think it even crossed my mind. I was fixed on putting her next to a Kork tree with Pepo Bugs to show the fantasy side of the book; as a greeting to the readers or something. I don’t even know anymore, but as I learned more about the book industry and etc. I’ve come to realize that I needed to show more of the adventure side of the book on the cover which is working very well. Showing the adventure side of the book speaks to her journey and it made the book feel less passive and I think that has an appeal to buyers.

I also took the title of Labyrinth’s Door off the cover and just made it Anyia, Dream of a Warrior. I did this because of the direction I’m going with the book series. I do want to come back with a Labyrinth’s Door series, which is a book with puzzles, mazes and etc., but it needs to be thought out more and setup different. I did leave the maze, puzzles and the how to draw section in the book, so the content is the same as well as all the inside illustrations.

Out of curiosity I would love to know which cover you like. Leave me a comment and let me know.

For more information about Anyia, Dream of a Warrior and to see some of the inside pages visit WorldsToDiscover.com

Talee and the Fallen Object, early reader chapter books came in and I’m so excited. Love how the colors came out. The books are up on WorldsToDiscover.com and ready for purchase so stop by and buy your copy today. If you have the ebook on Kindle or Nook you can now update it to get the new book cover and illustrations. Also, checkout out my blowout sale…50% off select items.

I hope your safe. I’m in Georgia and happy that the area I live in didn’t receive much of hurricane Irma. It was rainy and windy but nothing to bad. Our street lights went out but that was about the extent of it. No fallen trees and/or etc. which is great since we have lots of trees around us.

I also finished up the illustrations for the 2nd edition of Talee and the Fallen Object and submitted the pdf for print only to realize afterwards that I need to change a couple of the illustrations. I knew I should have printed a copy of the book out and looked for errors. For some reason it’s easy to miss things when they are digital even though they are obvious in print. Trying to rush never helped anybody. 🙂

The problem was that the illustrations didn’t line up with the text anymore. The text didn’t change but where the text fell on the page did, which meant some of the illustrations didn’t line up. The great thing is that this book started out as a coloring book and I have 14 illustrations to choose from. So, I changed two of the illustrations and printed out a copy of the book so that I could look through it and make sure everything was the way it’s suppose to be. I then approved it to be printed. My copies should arrive today. (New cover design to the left.)

Talee is my first early reader book character. She is a fun loving eight-year-old who adores adventures. She loves to read about her favorite explorer, Captain Jewel, and hopes to one day be a great explorer herself. Because of her love for exploring, she explores her home planet, Gala, whenever possible and takes her friends Cora and Nola with her.

Talee’s stories were initially going to be coloring book adventures, which is why all the illustrations in the first early reader book are color book style illustrations that kids can color. I wanted to keep a bit of the original idea in the book. Of course, now I’m working on the 2nd edition of the book and all the illustrations will be in color and this illustration will be one of them.